Kiss Them Goodbye. Stella Cameron

distinct contours of his mouth. He stopped moving toward her and she almost panicked at the thought that he might not kiss her.

      His eyes closed. His lips found hers in a soft, careful kiss. She heard their mouths part, but almost at once he drew the tip of his tongue across her lips and nipped lightly. They shifted their faces, noses bumping gently. Vivian felt his features, the beard stubble, feathered her fingers over his brows, his closed eyes.

      Spike maneuvered her to face him, pulled her forward until her knees were between his thighs. He held her head and stroked the corners of her mouth. Vivian pressed her mouth into his, passed her tongue over the smooth insides while his thumbs at the corners of her lips, rubbing, aroused her.

      He heard her pant, felt her tongue meet his and shifted on the chair. The little white tank top had wriggled up and when he sought her waist he found a bared midriff. With each touch, she moaned, and he moaned with her. He found the indentation in her spine, between her hips, slid a hand beneath her jeans and held her smooth bottom, let his fingers graze the dip between the cheeks.

      And Vivian rubbed him, his neck and shoulders, his sides, across his chest. She pinched his flat nipples and he thought he’d lose the last vestige of his control. Abandoning his mouth for his chest, she trailed her tongue over his skin, gradually lowered her head and sucked a dozen places on his belly.

      Vivian didn’t want to think about anything but the way he felt, and the way she felt with him. His abdomen, tight and inflexible, tasted salty. The sensation that came when he slipped her tank top from one shoulder stopped her breath. He bent over and kissed her there. His hands passed from her ribs to the sides of her breasts. And she burned, her nipples, deep in her womb, between her legs where flesh turned hard and erogenous. It swelled, throbbed.

      In one swift motion, Spike pulled her from her chair and astride his thighs and, as she’d known must happen, he stopped kissing her. He held her in strong arms, such strong arms she couldn’t catch her breath.

      Beneath her, she felt his erection. He wanted her as much as she wanted him. He pushed the distended ridge behind his zipper against her center. “Spike?”

      “This is going to sound crazy,” he said against her face, rocking her, dipping his tongue rapidly into her mouth and, always, breathing like a suffocating man. “I want you so bad it hurts.”

      “I want you,” she told him. It was too late for pride.

      “Vivian, I don’t just want sex with you.” He gave a short laugh. “Not that I don’t need that enough to make me want to take you no matter what the cost might be. But if I can’t have all of you, all the time, I’m not going to do something that’ll mean you’ll walk the other way if you see me coming.”

      She pushed a hand between them and massaged the hard length of him.

      Spike captured her wrist. For moments he closed her hand even harder over him and let his head drop back.

      Just as quickly, he pulled her hand from him.

      “I’d never walk away from you,” she said, leaning on him, pressing her face into his shoulder. “Not unless you told me to.”

      They came together in a frenzied burst. He kissed her wildly and didn’t confine himself to her mouth. Rocking her on top of his distended penis, he pulled her top above her breasts, held his tongue between his teeth while he narrowed his eyes to look at her. Beads of sweat broke out on his brow and upper lip.

      Vivian couldn’t stand waiting. She thrust herself toward him and he buried his face between her breasts. His mouth, settling over a nipple, pulled a cry from her and she moved him to the other breast. She put her feet on the floor either side of him and stood, pushing his head back while she tried to get closer and closer.

      Spike unzipped her jeans and slid his fingers inside her panties. Her hips jerked against him. He’d just about lost it all. Even knowing he should stop, not because he didn’t want her but because common sense told him to, he still couldn’t bring himself to leave her on the brink.

      Seconds passed in silence while he licked her breasts, flicked the tip of his tongue over her nipples—and got serious about his finger action. He longed to kiss her down there and finish the job with his mouth. Even if he’d decided to go for it, Vivian let him know it was too late. She curved forward over him, wrapped her arms around his head and held him hard against her, and came in a burst of convulsive thrusts.

      Already she tore at his zipper. Why did this have to be a decision? he wondered. He needed her now. They needed each other. “Not now, cher,” he murmured, holding her hand away. He had to hold on, get through this. “Not here.”

      “I like it here.”

      So did he, as long as she was with him.

      “Spike, I’ll never, never turn away from you.”

      “I’d rather not have to remind you of that promise,” he said, and stood up, moving her to his side and zipping his pants. Blood pounded in his head, and elsewhere. He willed his drive for sex to calm down. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and we’ll become what? Appropriate? I’m following you home to make sure you get safely inside.”

      Chapter 9

      “The only identifiable prints on the phone are yours. And that jackass Devol’s, of course. But since I figure he’d have fixed the thing if he was worried about it, I’m reckonin’ he’s probably clean, him.”

      Vivian swallowed several times but her mouth remained dry. Detective Bonine had set himself up in Uncle Guy’s old office in the south wing, apparently oblivious to the dust that layered everything and swirled in a slice of sunlight through velvet-draped windows. He shifted papers on the rosewood desk, sending more murky clouds into the air, and didn’t even sneeze.

      Vivian sneezed.

      So did Gary Legrain, whose very tall body all but reclined in an orange velvet chair with skeins of bright beads knotted on each leg.

      She met his gray eyes but he showed no emotion. However, from the moment he’d arrived before nine that morning, she’d liked him and been grateful he was at Rosebank. He’d offered, without pressure, to act as Charlotte and Vivian’s attorney if they wanted him, at least until they decided what to do about permanent representation. They assured him they wanted and needed him.

      “Did you read my clients their rights last night?” Legrain asked in his rumbly voice.

      Bonine slammed a bronze pineapple paperweight on top of a file. “I’ve told them they aren’t suspects.”

      “That wasn’t my question.”

      “Well, you got the answer I decided to give you,” Bo-nine said. “You still aren’t a suspect, Ms. Patin, but I’d like to read you your rights just the same. Better for both of us.” He whipped out a card and recited the Miranda in a rapid mono-tone as if he saw nothing wrong with having taken advantage the previous evening.

      “You recordin’ this?” Legrain asked innocently, scanning jammed bookcases at the same time.

      Bonine’s face had turned its signature shade of puce. The shaft of sun lighted a muzzy reddish halo around his grizzled head and Vivian got a fleeting vision of horns on top. Last night and early this formerly wonderful morning had not left her in the mood for sleep. Now she was exhausted and the horned mirage of Bo-nine made her giggle before wisdom clicked on.

      “You’re bein’ warned, you,” Bonine said. “There’s nothin’ funny about the situation here, or your part in it, Ms. Patin. You may not find me, or what could happen to you so funny in a while.”

      “Intimidating witnesses—”

      “Shut your mouth, Legrain,” Bonine said and Vivian didn’t need someone else to warn her the man was melting down. “Much more out of you and I’ll have you removed.”

      “On what grounds?” Legrain asked in a reasonable voice which wasn’t